THL  CHURCH  ANDTHL 
NLGRO 


A 5TATLMLNT  CONCERNING  OUR 
WORK  WITHIN  THL  BORDLR5 
OF  THL  UNITED  5TATL5 


THL  BOARD  OF  MI55ION5 


281  FOURTH  AVLNUE. 


NEW  YORK 


w-  nwi 


•ST.  I’AIJI/S  NORMAL  AND  INDUSTHIAL  SCHOOL.  LAWHI'.NCKVILI.K,  VA. 


THE  CHURCH  AMONG  THE 
NEGROES 

By  the  Rev.  SAMUEL  H.  BISHOP 

THE  “PROBLEM” 

ONE  of  the  happy  signs  of  the  Church’s  life  and 
growth  in  these  days  is  the  increasing  sense  of 
sureness  of  touch  in  her  missionary  work. 
Problems  vast  and  comple.x  do  not  now  stun  her  into 
silence,  nor  difficulties  turn  her  into  sloughs  of  hesita- 
tion. China,  Japan,  the  Philij)pines,  Alaska,  are  no 
longer  the  stuff  out  of  which  dreams  are  made,  but 
the  open  promises  of  a working  day;  they  are  dis- 
tinctly set  within  the  horizon  of  the  possible  to  a 
calculating  sense  as  well  as  to  an  obedient  faith. 

Only  in  one  field  does  there  -seem  to  be  uncertainty 
of  touch,  hesitating  judgment,  and  faltering  effort. 
About  the  Negro  and  about  the  methods  of  ai)peal  to 
him  we  seem  divided  in  mind,  troubled  in  heart,  and 
confu-sed  in  action. 

Perhai)s  we  may  simply  note  a few  of  the  reasons 
for  this  anomalous  condition  which  distresses  us.  One 
is  that  we  are  as  a matter  of  fact  a national  church, 
with  a democratic  form  of  government;  and  national 
action  on  difficult  and  perj)lexing  questions  is  always  a 
compound  of  varying,  ami  possibly  of  antagonistic 
-sectional  needs,  motives,  and  forces.  Another  is  that 
certain  racial  facts  and  necessities  have  flung  our 
Church  machinery  out  of  gear.  Still  another  is  that 
we  somehow  lack  the  staying  power  which  would  keep 
us  thinking  at  a hard  and  wearisome  problem  until  we 
have  .solved  it ; hence  our  interest  is  spasmodic  and 
fleeting,  instead  of  abiding,  insistent,  and  compelling. 


3 


as  it  ought  to  be.  And  lastly,  we  have  almost  no  Negro 
specialists  among  the  laity — men  who  view  the  work 
of  missions  Negro-end-to. 

But  it  would  be  utterly  false  if  we  gave 
THE  PAST  the  impression  that  our  Church’s  work 

for  the  Negro  has  been  or  need  be  a 
failure.  In  ante-bellum  days,  notwithstanding  all  the 
faults  of  slavery,  there  was  carried  on  an  extraordi- 
narily successful  missionary  activity  which  was  blessed, 
not  only  with  large  numbers  of  communicants,  but 
also  with  a very  real  religious  and  ethical  development 
of  Negro  life  and  character.  For  example,  in  the  old 
registry  of  Bruton  Parish  we  find  thirty-three  con- 
secutive pages  entirely  devoted  to  the  record  of  bap- 
tisms of  slaves  or  colored  servants.  This  record  ex- 
tends from  1746  to  1797.  During  that  period  there 
were  1,122  Negroes  baptized,  and  during  the  year  1750 
the  record  of  baptisms  of  Negroes  in  Bruton  Parish 
alone  was  larger  by  one  than  the  total  number  of 
infant  and  adult  baptisms  of  Negroes  in  the  Diocese 
of  Southern  Virginia  during  the  year  1903.  In  1724 
the  Reverend  IVilliam  Beech  reported  to  the  Bishop 
of  London  that  he  instructed  and  baptized  (during 
15  years)  200  slaves,  and  that  the  owners  of  slaves 
were  generally  careful  to  bring  them  to  baptism.  Sim- 
ilar work  was  being  done  in  South  Carolina.  In  St. 
Michael’s  record  (Charleston)  for  the  year  1818  there 
were  registered  130  colored  communicants  to  350 
white;  and  in  St.  Phillip’s  for  the  same  year  180 
colored  to  320  white  communicants.  In  1856  there 
were  in  the  diocese  3,022  colored  to  2,971  white 
communicants. 

The  real  fact  is  that  the  Christian  people  of  the 
South  felt  deeply  their  responsibility  for  the  moral 
and  religious  training  of  the  Negro;  and  to  some 


measure  of  fulfilment  of  that  responsibility  is  due  the 
fact  that  the  Negroes  acquired  during  that  period  so 
much  of  ethical  character  and  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  to  enable  the  best  of  them  to  become  teach- 
ers of  their  people,  and  to  make  all  of  them  capable 
of  the  generous  fidelity  they  manifested  during  the 
war.  It  was  not  infrequent  in  religious  families  of 
the  South  to  find  a white-haired  saintly  old  Negro 
bearing  witness  to  the  things  of  God  before  white 
and  black  alike. 

There  is  no  way  of  ascertaining 
THE  PRESENT  definitely  what  proportion  of  the 

Negroes  in  this  land  were  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war  between  the  States  baptized 
members  of  the  Church.  In  1859  there  were  recorded 

468.000  members  of  the  various  churches  in  the  South, 
of  which  it  is  perhaps  fair  to  assume  that  more  than 

50.000  w'ere  baptized  members  of  our  Church.  There 
are  now  about  20,000  communicants  in  the  whole 
Church,  twenty  independent  parishes  and  about 
200  chapels  and  missions;  many  of  which  are  steadily 
gaining  in  self-reliance,  in  appreciation  of  opportunity 
and  of  duty,  and  in  courageous  and  faithful  attack  upon 
the  hard  and  difficult  tasks  which  confront  them.  In 
at  least  two  southern  dioceses  the  Negroes  give  to 
the  work  of  the  Church  $5.00  per  capita;  in  a North 
Carolina  town  a congregation  of  working  people  gave 
for  a new  church  building  over  $8,000,  besides  at  the 
same  time  maintaining  and  extending  parochial  work; 
a New  Jersey  mission,  also  of  working  people,  gave 
over  $7,000  toward  a new  building — nearly  one-half 
of  its  cost;  it  was  a Negro  congregation  which  vied 
with  St.  Thomas’s,  New  York,  in  giving  to  missions  an 
amount  received  for  a new  church  building  to  replace 
one  destroyed  by  fire;  it  was  a Negro  barber  who 


bought  and  paid  for  from  his  own  earnings  a building 
lot,  paid  most  of  the  cost  of  a chapel  building,  and 
still  bears  most  of  the  expense  of  a parochial  school 
with  200  pupils;  it  was  a graduate  of  St.  Augustine’s 
School  who  in  Christ’s  name  gave  up  personal  ambi- 
tion to  become  a farmer  in  a backwoods  community, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  teach  a school  for  which 
public  provision  could  not  be  obtained;  it  was  another 
graduate  of  St.  Augustine’s  who  trained  fiv'e  lay- 
readers,  and  with  their  help  started  a mission. 

Work  among  the  Negroes  has  its  peculiar  diffi- 
culties, some  of  which  are  attributable  to  our  Church’s 
own  inertness  and  lack  of  vital  and  commanding 
interest,  others  to  other  causes.  We  do  not  give  to 
the  Negroes  the  same  governmental  initiative  which 
they  find  in  other  bodies;  and  in  consequence  the 
Methodists  and  Baptists  alone  have  nearly  four 
million  Negro  members,  and  influence  75  per  cent 
of  the  total  population.  But  the  loyalty  and  staying 
quality  of  our  people,  and  especially  of  the  graduates 
of  our  schools,  under  all  conditions  and  amid  all 
discouragements,  are  remarkable  evidence  of  the 
Church’s  abiding  power  and  influence.  There  is 
probably  less  leakage  of  cultivated  and  thoughtful 
young  people  from  our  Church  than  from  any  other 
body.  An  eminent  judge  in  a southern  state,  himself 
a Methodist,  paroles  first  offenders  among  Negro 
youth  only  to  members  of  our  Church;  and  the 
secretary  of  a great  home-mission  board  has  recently 
declared  that  upon  the  type  of  character  which  our 
Church  tends  to  produce  depends  the  whole  hope  for 
the  moral  and  religious  progress  of  the  Negroes  of 
this  land. 

Recognizing  then,  as  we  must,  that  from  the  time 
when  the  Reverend  Absalom  Jones,  the  first  Negro 


6 


ordained  to  the  ministry  of  the  Church  in  this  country, 
began  his  work  in  Philadelphia  in  1795,  to  the  present 
time,  much  devoted  and  heroic  work  has  been  done. 
Still  the  present  conditions  must  be  unsatisfactory  to 
anyone  who  loves  and  believes  in  the  Church,  and  who 
realizes  how  critical  is  the  need  of  the  Negro  people 
in  this  land,  and  how  serious  the  Negro  problem  is 
likely  to  be  unless  the  Christian  forces  in  the  country 
shall  awaken  to  the  fact  that  this  problem,  like  all 
of  our  great  social  problems,  requires  not  so  much  a 
solvent  as  a solver.  That  Solver  we  believe  to  be 
Jesus  Christ;  and  notwithstanding  the  smallness  of 
our  numbers,  we  believe  the  Church  has  a peculiar 
work  to  do,  one  of  which  many  of  the  best  colored 
people  are  conscious,  and  which  they  desire  to  see  her 
accomplish. 

THE  CHURCH’S  AIMS 

Notwithstanding  the  uncertainty 
I.  A ]\IINISTR\  of  which  we  have  spoken,  the 

Church  is  doing  some  things 
which  are  sure  in  insight,  definite  in  aim,  and  certain 
in  promise — the  things  which  the  Negro  most  needs, 
and  the  e.xperience  of  the  world  most  clearly  certifies 
to  be  wise.  We  offer  in  our  divinity  schools  a high 
order  of  training  for  those  who  are  to  be  priests  and 
prophets  to  their  j)eoi)le;  and  we  have  one  divinity 
school  especially  for  Negro  students,  which  is  meeting 
with  peculiar  intelligence  and  skill  the  needs  of  men 
who  are  to  serve  in  the  cities  and  rural  districts  of  the 
South.  AMien  one  considers  the  lack  of  adequate 
previous  training  of  some  of  our  boys,  and  hence  the 
necessarily  extended  course  of  study,  it  seems  well 
within  the  limits  of  modesty  to  say  that  in  wise  adjust- 


7 


A CLASS  OF  TRAINED  NURSES  AT  ST.  AGNES’S  HOSPITAL,  RALEKHL  N.  C. 

TAc  /lev.  A.  B.  Tlunler,  Principal  of  St.  Augustine's  School,  and  Afrs.  Hunter,  stand  in  (he  center.  Dr.  Hayden  sits  tn  front  of  <Am 


ment  of  studies  to  the  needs  of  the  students,  in  drill 
so  intelligent  and  earnest  as  to  be  an  inspiration  as 
well  as  a task,  in  modest  scholarship  and  high  thinking 
the  Bishop  Payne  Divinity  School  has  no  superior. 
It  has  graduated  fifty-nine  men,  of  whom  ten  died  in 
orders  and  forty-nine  are  in  the  aetive  ministry,  all 
doing  good  work  for  the  Master  and  for  their  people. 

We  have  a normal 

II.  CHRISTIAN  EDUCATION  an  d collegiate 

school  which  for 

more  than  forty-five  years  has  planted  in  southern  life 
a seed  of  young  men  and  women  to  whom  it  had  im- 
parted mental  and  spiritual  culture,  and  whose  energies 
it  had  trained  for  service  of  hand  as  well  as  of  head 
and  of  heart.  St.  Augustine’s  School  has  been  unique 
among  Negro  schools  for  its  harmoniously  propor- 
tioned training  of  hand  and  head  and  heart;  and  it 
has  kept  the  visions  and  ideals  of  culture  and  of  mental 
discipline  together  with  a constant  and  keen  sense  of 
the  necessity  that  an  educated  man  and  woman  shall 
know  in  sympathy  and  in  fact  the  pleasure  and  the 
profit  of  manual  toil.  Throughout  the  South  St. 
Augustine’s  is  known  as  the  Negro’s  West  Point,  which 
characterization  does  not  refer  to  a military  regime, 
but  to  urgent  insistence  upon  the  moral  and  religious 
aids  to  character,  upon  honest  work,  high  standards, 
and  an  austere  modesty  as  to  personal  claims.  The 
normal  department  of  St.  Augustine’s  is  doing  admir- 
able work  in  training  teachers,  and  is  therefore  meeting, 
so  far  as  its  material  abilities  permit,  the  mo.st  pressing 
need  of  Negro  life  in  the  South.  The  hospital  and  the 
training  school  for  nurses  are  among  the  most  useful 
services  the  Church  is  rendering  in  any  field. 

We  have  two  great  industrial  and  farm  schools, 
St.  Paul’s  and  the  Fort  >Valley  school — St.  Paul’s  so 


9 


well  and  favorably  known  as  to  need  no  description 
here  other  than  to  say  that  it  has  under  God  morally 
and  economically  re-made  the  Negroes  in  a district 
comprising  two  or  more  counties,  and  is  influencing 
southern  Virginia  and  northern  North  Carolina.  The 
Fort  Valley  School  is  the  most  important  Negro  school 
in  Georgia,  and  a state  supervisor  of  schools  says  it  is 
doing  what  the  white  schools  are  talking  about  doing. 

Aside  from  the  schools  mentioned,  we  have  eight 
secondary  and  industrial  schools  in  eight  dioceses, 
progressing  slowly  but  steadily  toward  high  standards 
of  competency  and  efficiency — teaching  and  inspiring 
the  practice  of  real  religion,  sound  manners,  honest 
industry,  and  useful  citizenship. 

Again,  there  are  about 
III.  PAROCHIAL  CARE  loO  parochial  schools  at- 
tached to  parishes  and 
missions,  whiph  are  training  about  5,000  pupils  in  the 
beginnings  of  religion  and  in  the  principles  of  right 
living.  There  is  a widespread  opinion,  even  among 
Churchmen,  that  parochial  schools  are  a questionable 
good,  in  that  they  may  have  the  effect  of  releasing  the 
state  from  its  obligation  to  educate  all  its  children. 
But  there  is  one  simple  fact  of  history  which  should 
calm  that  fear,  namely,  that  the  prompting  to  public 
education — indeed,  the  prompting  and  typical  example 
for  practically  every  form  of  public  care  of  helpless 
life — has  come  from  the  Church.  This  is  not  to  say 
that  public  hospitals,  homes  for  the  aged  and  the 
defective,  orphan  asylums  and  schools  would  not 
have  come  sometime;  but  only  to  state  that  as  a 
matter  of  fact  they  did  come  from  the  Church.  With 
all  their  faults  and  poverty  parochial  schools  for 
Negroes  are  better  than  the  majority  of  public  schools, 
and  therefore  still  have  suggestive  and  typical  value. 


10 


The  South  with  its  expensive  system  of  double  schools, 
though  it  is  heroically  trying,  has  not  yet  given  school 
opportunity  to  more  than  52  per  cent  of  its  Negro 
school  children,  and  to  those  only  for  about  an  average 
of  four  months  in  a year.  This  case  of  the  parochial 
school  might  rest  on  an  appeal  to  the  method  of 
history;  but  there  are  other  matters,  like  reverence, 
purity  of  character,  faith,  the  discipline  of  God,  the 
lack  of  which  in  too  many  of  our  American  youth  of 
all  classes — not  to  speak  of  inability  to  use  English,  or 
of  cluttered  minds  and  untrained  talents — may  well 
give  the  critics  of  the  parochial  school  pause,  and 
induce  an  unwonted  modesty  of  judgment.  Whatever 
the  future  may  determine,  it  is  not  yet  time  to  abolish 
the  Negro  parochial  school;  though  it  should  be 
unselfish,  suggestive,  and  exemplary.  The  policeman 
who  patrols  the  beat  in  which  St.  Mary’s  (Columbia, 
S.  C.)  is  situated,  says  that  school  has  transformed  a 
section  which  was  formerly  one  of  the  worst  slums 
in  the  city. 

Now  we  must  turn  to  our  church  and  mission  work. 
That  depends  largely  upon  our  Negro  clergy;  and  of 
them  it  is  our  joy  to  say  that  they  are  men  of  uni- 
formly high  character,  fine  purpose,  real  consecration, 
and  steady  faith.  Many  of  them  are  lonely,  most  of 
them  ill-paid,  none  in  easy  fields,  few  with  even  fair 
parish  equijjment,  yet  they  work  uncomplainingly, 
zealously,  hopefully,  devotedly,  for  their  Lord,  as 
Chiistian  missionaries  should.  And  their  work  bears 
fruit  in  an  increased  number  of  communicants,  in 
moralized  homes,  in  leavened  communities,  and  in  a 
saner  and  higher  religious  life  for  all  the  Christian 
bodies  of  Negroes.  In  every  diocese  but  one  where 
Negroes  are,  the  number  of  our  communicants  has 
increased  each  year  for  several  years;  in  three  dioceses 


11 


the  gain  has  been  proportionately  greater  among 
Negroes  than  among  whites;  three  parishes  have  more 
than  tripled  the  number  of  communicants  in  five 
years;  giving  is  steadily  increasing;  service  of  the 
community  is  more  intelligent  and  effective;  where 
the  Church  is  strong,  race  relations  are  good  and 
Negro  crime  and  vice  diminish;  in  Brunswick  County, 
Virginia,  the  jail  has  been  empty  for  many  months; 
in  short,  Christ  is  the  Solver,  and  the  Church  is  His 
representative. 

But  men  and  means  are  needed;  established  schools 
must  be  equipped  and  strengthened;  missions  and 
parishes  should  be  a thousand  instead  of  a hundred; 
ignorance,  disease,  and  immorality  are  still  wofully 
rife;  fear  and  sullenness  stalk  where  love  and  con- 
fidence should  reign;  life  is  scant  where  it  should  be 
joyous  and  abundant;  advancing  ambition  and  in- 
creasing power  need  subjection  to  the  Master  of  Love. 
We  ask  for  this  work,  interest,  prayer,  faith,  and 
money. 


FOR  OUR  WORK  AMONG  NEGROES 

OLord,  our  Saviour,  WTio  hast  told  us  that  Thou  wilt 
require  much  of  those  to  whom  much  is  given;  grant 
that  Thy  Church  may  more  fully  discharge  her 
responsibility  to  extend  Thy  Kingdom  among  the  Negro 
people  in  our  land.  Raise  up  native  ministers  to  lead 
them  in  the  paths  of  righteousness.  Guide  them  in 
their  work  and  send  down  Thy  blessings,  temporal  and 
spiritual,  upon  all  the  members  of  thb  race.  All  this  we 
ask  in  Thy  Name.  Amen. 


This  pamphlet  may  be  obtained  from  the  Literature  Department^  Board  of  Missions, 
281  Fourth  Avenue,  New  York,  Ask  for  No.  700, 

All  o^erings  for  Missions  should  be  sent  to  Mr.  George  Gordon  King,  Treasurer, 
Church  Missions  House,  281  Fourth  Avenue,  New  York, 


1 Ed.,  2-14.  lOM.  R.  P. 


